MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Your People Need Care, Not a Battle Cry

“WE ARE AT WAR,” French President Emmanuel Macron said gravely in one of his first evening messages about COVID-19 to the citizens of the country where I live. Five times he repeated it. My family and I were just beginning to adjust to our home confinement. I had not fully registered the battle imagery before then, but it was certainly there, in reports from the Italian “front line” and re g ions so on “under assault.” Two weeks later, by the time U.S. President Donald Trump said that watching doctors and nurses heading to work was like seeing “military people going into battle,” I felt besieged by the metaphor. It’s everywhere, in politics and business, and it might be doing us more harm than good.

About the Author

Gianpiero Petriglieri (@gpetriglieri) is an associate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD. A medical doctor and psychiatrist by training, he researches and practices leadership development.

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